Afternoon summary

• The Conservative MP Robert Halfon, who has been campaigning for a 10p starting rate of tax, has suggested that Ed Miliband's proposal is partly just a byelection stunt. This is what he told Sky News.

We raised the tax threshold to £10,000, the Labour party voted against it. We have froze fuel duty, the Labour party voted against it, we froze council tax and the Labour party voted against it. What I am saying is we need something substantive, not just jam for the Eastleigh byelection with the Labour party today. What we need is a substantial proposal and we should have a 10p tax rate from roughly £10,000 to £12,000 which is the minimum wage level.

This is a bold and welcome step from Ed Miliband. The Labour party is starting to set out big ideas for 2015 and demonstrating how to deliver a fair economy.

This should be the first step in a comprehensive overhaul of British taxation. Labour now needs to develop detailed plans to tax low earnings less and wealth and property more.

A mansion tax is a good start, but the Opposition should promise a range of taxes on assets to take the heat out of the property market, reduce inequality and deliver fair taxation between generations.

Miliband’s speech is his most compelling step to take his party beyond New Labour yet. But it is also a challenge to the verities of Old Labour as well. A policy of nationalising industries that merely changed the name-plates without altering their basic structure or behaviour did absolutely nothing to advance social justice and left Labour without a serious vision of economic modernisation at a time when it needed one most in the 1970’s. Miliband is rejecting the failed orthodoxies of state planning and laissez faire and returning to the challenge that Old and New Labour both flunked – that of creating a British variant of the social market economy. While the 10p tax announcement is sure to grab the headlines, his most important commitments for me involved tackling the culture of short-termism in British industry and creating new responsibilities for companies to offer training and apprenticeships. Stakeholder economics is firmly back on the agenda.

From Matthew Oakley, head of economics and policy at the Policy Exchange thinktank

We need to put more money into the pockets of families struggling to make ends meet in the face of significant rises in the cost of living, but under this proposal net incomes for low-paid working families would only increase by 67p a week if they are on in-work benefits.

This is because of complex interactions between the tax and benefit system.

It is essential that any move back to a lower bottom rate of tax goes hand in hand with consideration of the interactions with the benefit system and the level at which the personal allowance in income tax is set.

• Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, has said that Sir John Major's Europe speech (see 2.05pm) shows that David Cameron announced his referendum policy for partisan reasons.

John Major has acknowledged today that David Cameron’s gamble on Europe is much more about managing a divided Conservative Party than what’s best for Britain.

He explained the choice the prime minister has made – prioritising the politics of the Conservative party over the interests of the country. And he issued a blunt warning that if David Cameron goes it alone in Europe, then it will be Britain that will be left worse off.

Today’s speech by John Major simply confirms that David Cameron’s approach risks creating instability and undermining future investment.

That's all from me for today.

Tomorrow I will be in Eastleigh writing a live blog about the byelection campaign.

My prediction is that they won't have thought it through or costed it properly and we'll discover over the course of the day all sorts of problems and issues with a policy that looks like it's been cobbled together overnight.

And Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, gave it a cool reception.

The two Eds are rather late to the party, wanting to cut taxes for those on low and middle incomes.

After 13 years in government, the only action Ed Balls took was to raise the amount of tax those on low incomes paid by abolishing the 10p rate. It was the biggest tax mistake they ever made and it has taken them until now to realise their error.

The best way to cut taxes for those on low incomes is take them out of tax altogether. That is why Liberal Democrats in Government are raising the Personal Allowance. From April, nearly 25m people will get a further Income Tax cut so they will be £600 a year better off than under Labour.

Labour had 13 years in government to make property taxes fairer by introducing the Liberal Democrat policy of a mansion tax. With the Liberal Democrats in government the wealthy are paying more in each year of this parliament compared to any under Labour.

• Sir John Major, the Conservative former prime minister, has applauded Cameron's EU referendum "gamble" today, saying it could heal sores and have a "cleansing effect" on politics. But, as the Press Association reports, Major warned Cameron to beware a backlash from Eurosceptics in his own party "with Conservative heads and Ukip hearts" who would settle for nothing less than withdrawal. Major, whose own time in Number 10 was wracked by backbench rebellions over the Maastricht treaty, said it was time to "resolve" an issue which had come close to destroying the party.

Two weeks ago, the prime minister offered the nation a referendum on whether to remain in the EU or leave it. He was right to do so.

As a principle, I don't like referenda in a parliamentary system. But this could heal many old sores and have a cleansing effect on politics. It will be healthy to let the electorate re-endorse our membership, or pull us out altogether.

At present, we are drifting towards and possibly through the European exit. We need a renegotiation and a referendum endorsement of it. If this is denied, the clamour for it will only grow.

But it is a gamble for the country and for the Conservative Party. The relationship with Europe has poisoned British politics for too long, distracted Parliament from other issues, and come close to destroying the Conservative Party. It is time to resolve the matter.

• Jon Cruddas, Labour's policy co-ordinator, has said that "more markets or more state" are not the solution to the problems facing Britain. "We do not live by the managerialism of the state nor by the transactions of the market," he said. "We live in families and relationships and networks of friendships in local places."

• Mark Harper, the immigration minister, has said that asylum seekers who claim to be from Kuwait, Syria or Palestine will face rigorous language tests following a wave of false applications. As the Press Association reports, in a sample of 20 nationalities, 100% of applicants claiming to be from Palestine were later shown not to be from the middle-eastern region, while 80% of applicants stating they were Syrian had lied. Some 79% of Kuwaiti applications were also false.

• David Cameron has given a strong endorsement to the Conservative candidate in Eastleigh, Maria Hutchings, on a campaign trip to the byelection. He said he got to know Hutchings in 2005 when he became shadow education secretary. They met to discuss special education needs as she has two disabled children.

I saw in the meetings I had with Maria then someone who was passionate, someone who really cared, someone who thought not just about her own family but about other families and how they were going to cope. She lives here, she's a local mother with four children, she's got small business experience. The most important thing is who knows this area, is going to stand up for it and is a thorough, decent person who tells it like it is? That is what you'll get with Maria.

• The jury in the trial of Vicky Pryce, Chris Huhne's ex-wife, has gone out to consider its verdict.

No 10 don't see the speech as a game-changer (or at least they say they don't). Here's the response from a Downing Street spokeman.

This is a stunning admission of economic incompetence from Ed Miliband and Ed Balls– that their decision in government to scrap the 10p tax rate hurt millions of working families. People will never trust Labour again.

The low income working people who lost out the most from Labour’s 10p tax hike now pay no tax at all thanks to this government’s record increases in the tax free personal allowance. Losers under Labour have become winners thanks to our tax changes.

Now Labour’s new homes tax would mean government snoopers in every home to revalue your house for council tax, meaning council tax rises for millions.

Instead this government has increased tax on the richest in every budget, through higher stamp duty on expensive properties and taxes on the biggest multi million pound pension pots.

Updated at 1.28pm GMT

1.19pm GMT

Ed Miliband's 10p tax rate plan - Analysis

Journalists are always on the look-out for political announcements that turn out to be game-changers, but in reality they are few and far between. I can think of Gordon Brown telling a startled Jim Naughtie on the Today programme in early 1997 that Labour was ruling out tax increases for the entirety of the next parliament; Labour was already miles ahead in the polls, but that finally killed all prospects of the Tories running a successful "Labour will raise taxes" campaign. George Osborne's pledge to raise inheritance tax at the Conservative autumn conference in 2007 helped to quash Gordon Brown's plans for an election, and may have saved David Cameron's leadership (although six years later it is now a broken promise, and an embarrassment.) And Nigel Lawson decision to cut the top rate of tax from 60p to 40p was a game-changer too, not so much because of its impact on electoral fortunes but because it reshaped the structure of the income tax system for a generation.

Is today's announcement a game-changer, as I suggested at 11.03am. It's too early to be sure. But it could be. Here are three reasons why.

• Miliband now has a big, clear retail offer for the voters. For the last two years he has been dogged by the claim that he doesn't have any policies, or that he does not stand for anything positive (see David Cameron at PMQs, passim.) In some respects these charges have been unfair. Labour do have policy proposals, and Miliband has a "One Nation" doctrine (although Lord Ashcroft's research found hardly anyone knew what this meant). But, until now, Miliband did not have a simple, attractive policy he could sell to people on the doorstep. Now he does. Even if few of us fully understand the minutiae of tax rates, thresholds and allowances, people can grasp the idea of taxing people with large homes to fund tax cuts for ordinary people.

2. He has started to realign British politics. This speech won't dismantle the coalition, but Miliband has now lined Labour up alongside the Lib Dems on an issue about which the Lib Dems are passionate. VeryBritishDude sums it up crudely but very well on Twitter. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition after 2015 is now looking much more likely.

I'm not entirely convinced that this speech is a once-in-a-parliament game-changer. But it is certainly a lot more significant than the extracts released overnight suggested.

Updated at 3.18pm GMT

12.36pm GMT

And here's some more reaction to the Labour announcement.

From the Unite general secretary Len McCluskey

This is a key speech. Ed Miliband is breaking free from the failed neo liberal project embraced by both the Conservatives and New Labour. Today Ed has shown that his heart is in the right place defending working people.

The restoration of the 10p tax rate is an important and welcome step towards building a fairer and more equal society. We believe Ed can go even further by announcing an extra £1 on the minimum wage as President Obama has called for across the Atlantic.

The Labour leader has drawn the dividing lines for the next election. In 2015 voters will have a clear choice, ten more years of austerity and misery, or the hope offered by a Labour government that will be on the side of the people, not the one per cent.

It looks like Ed Miliband has been reading the New Statesman. Last week's NS leader urged the Labour leader to call for the return of the 10p tax rate (as demanded by Conservative MP Robert Halfon) and in his speech on the economy, Miliband has done just that.

Having borrowed one smart idea from a Tory, Miliband has borrowed another from a Lib Dem (Vince Cable). The return of the 10p rate will be funded by the introduction of a "mansion tax" on houses worth more than £2m.

The numbers will need to be scrutinised but the politics are perfect. The pledge distances Miliband from one of Gordon Brown's greatest mistakes, demonstrates his commitment to redistribution and puts pressure on the coalition to match his offer.

Governments make mistakes. But when they do it is always better to own up and put them right. The last Labour government did many good things. But we got things wrong too. Scrapping the 10p tax rate, which Labour first introduced in 1999, was one of those mistakes. People understandably thought Labour was no longer on the side of the hard-working people we have always sought to help.

12.08pm GMT

The final question comes from an apprentice at the Bedford training centre where he is speaking.

Q: What would you do about tuition fees?

Miliband says he can see how high tuition fees are putting people off university.

He will set out more plans before the election.

12.06pm GMT

Another question.

Q: Isn't this just a piece of political strategy to try to split the coalition?

No, says Ed Miliband.

He says Labour wants a mansion tax because it thinks wealth is under-taxed.

George Osborne wrote to Tory donors saying they would block a mansion tax.

Labour and the Tories have different priorities. That is what politics is about.

Balls says the plan would raise a "substantial amount of money". The £1.7bn to £2bn estimate is a reasonable one, he says. Half these homes are second homes, bought for investment purposes. It is fair to tax them.

Updated at 12.10pm GMT

12.03pm GMT

More questions.

Q: [To Balls.] You used to say you would use a mansion tax to reverse tax credit cuts. Is that still the plan?

Balls says that, after he said that, the government ruled out a mansion tax. Today he is saying Labour would use the mansion tax to pay for a 10p tax rate. It is a costed proposal.

But it is not a manifesto commitment. Balls says that George Osborne learned the problem of making manifesto commitment years in advance when he said he would raise the inheritance tax threshold. He has had to abandon that promise, Balls says.

Updated at 12.07pm GMT

11.59am GMT

We're at the Q&A.

Q: Why aren't you giving David Cameron hell at the despatch box about unemployment?

Miliband says he thinks getting young people back to work is "really not that difficult". Labour would tax bankers' bonuses to fund a work programme for unemployed young people. He thinks businesses would back this.

Q: How would you find the mansions worth £2m? Could you do it without a very intrusive revaluation?

Ed Balls says he has said he would work with the Lib Dems to make this work.

You could do it in different ways.

There are around 70,000 homes worth more than £2m. Interestingly, half of them are second homes.

A few years ago the IFS said this would raise £1.7bn. Now it would raise more.

Balls says he would be happy to go to the Treasury on Monday to start working on this with Danny Alexander.

Miliband is now taking questions, but those numpties at BBC News thought it would be more interesting to hear from a journalist talking about the speech instead.

11.35am GMT

Miliband is now winding up.

It is a choice between two different visions of our economy.The Conservative vision of a race to the bottom in wages and skills, rewarding those at the very top but leaving everyone else squeezed as never before.Or the One Nation Labour vision.Our economy will only prosper when the vast majority of the people of this country prosper too.When working families have confidence and security; when they can invest in their future; and when they can start businesses of their own.

And he claims to be standing in the Harold Macmillan tradition.

One Nation.Not just a better way to live, but the only way to prosper.It is how Britain has flourished in the past.It is what the Labour government understood in 1945.It’s what Harold MacMillan understood when he spoke here in Bedford more than half a century ago.

11.33am GMT

Miliband says too many people do not get the support that they need. Parents can't work because they can't get childcare, or because they have caring responsibilities, and young people cannot get money for deposit on a home.

They all know that we can’t solve these problems on our own. None of us on our own are going to build the roads we need, the railways we need, the housing we need. It is only by acting together.And that is the idea at the heart of a One Nation economy: that our recovery will be built by the many - by all of us working together - and not just by a few at the top.

And that is what we will fight for between now and the General Election.

11.31am GMT

Labour will take on vested interests wherever they exist, he says.

For example, it will insist on a real separation between casino and high street banking.

[The chancellor] still refuses to put in place a comprehensive power to split the banks by law. We need that in legislation so if the banking system does not change its culture, we can break the banks up.

Updated at 11.37am GMT

11.29am GMT

Miliband says Labour will end short-termism in industry.

Let me give you an example. We will stop takeovers that are waved through on the votes of speculators and hedge funds who flood in to buy shares once a takeover bid has been announced. Because when that happens it can destroy great British companies and the good jobs that go with them.

Updated at 11.37am GMT

11.27am GMT

Labour will create a new technical baccalaureate as an alternative to A-levels, he says.

11.26am GMT

Miliband is now talking about skills.

As you all know, Britain needs to have the best skilled workforce in the world if we are going to compete.The industrial revolution was built on the skills of the best workers in the world. In more recent decades, Britain’s Universities have given us some of the world’s greatest scientists and innovators.Today, however, we still lag well behind our competitors in productivity. Not because we don’t work hard.We do.We work longer hours than many of our competitors.It is because we’re not doing enough to get the best out of everyone, in particular the 50% of young people who don’t go to University.That is where the next wave of productivity and growth must come from in an economy made by the many not just a few at the top.We need a revolution in vocational education and apprenticeships.Of course, I want young people from all backgrounds to aspire to go to University.But I also want young people who are awarded an apprenticeship to know that Britain values you.

11.25am GMT

Miliband is now talking about other Labour economic proposals.

We would also be making different choices between the most powerful in our society and ordinary working people. Working people are paying more than they should, from energy to credit, and we would take action to

Break the stranglehold of the big six energy suppliers.

Stop the train company price rip-offs on the most popular routes.

Introduce new rules to stop unfair bank charges.

And cap interest on payday loans.

But this is only a beginning of a plan to build a One Nation economy.

11.23am GMT

Ed Miliband Photograph: /BBC Parliament

Miliband says he will put a fairer tax system at the heart of his priorities.

He is now on the 10p starting rate of tax passage. (See 11.03m.)

Showing our priority to do everything we can to make a difference to people’s living standards.

Sending a message about how Britain is going to succeed in the years ahead:

That when you play your part, when you make your contribution to the economy, you will be rewarded. And that Britain’s economic success will be built by the many, not just by a few at the top.

Updated at 11.24am GMT

11.20am GMT

Back to the speech.

Miliband is saying the government is going to cut taxes for people earning £1m a year by £100,000.

He says Britain needs successful entrepreneurs.

But we can’t succeed as a country just by hoping wealth will trickle down from those at the top to everyone else.

Our economy won’t turn around that way.

That’s why it’s not right to be cutting taxes for the very richest when everyone else is just seeing their living standards squeezed.

You know, somebody said to me recently: this government seems to be the first in our history to believe that you can base a whole economic strategy on the misery rather than the success of the working people of the country.

Updated at 11.28am GMT

11.17am GMT

Labour sources have been briefing on the 10p lower rate of tax plan.

• The tax cut would be fully funded by the mansion tax. Labour has not said how much money it would raise from the new property tax yet, but sources point out that the Lib Dems have talked about raising £2bn from a mansion tax. A £2bn tax would allow the government to apply the 10p band up to £1,000. Some 25m people would benefit.

• Labour would probably taper it to ensure that the benefits only went to people on lower and middle incomes, not high earners.

• This is not a manifesto commitment. Labour says that's because the manifesto will only be written at the time of the next election. But this is described as "a clear signal about what the priority of the next government would be" - ie, a quasi-commitment.

11.09am GMT

And here is more from the speech on the 10p lower rate of tax.

Ed Balls and I want a 10 pence tax rate and a mansion tax in government.

We’ve rightly said that we will only set out our tax and spending commitments at the next general election.

That is the way a responsible opposition should conduct itself.

However this is a clear signal about the priority we attach to a fairer tax system and the living standards of working people.

11.03am GMT

Ed Miliband says Labour backs 10p lower rate of tax

Ed Miliband is due to start his speech.

The Labour party has sent out the text. And it contains a big story - a proper biggie, because it's potentially a game-changer.

Miliband is saying Labour would introduce a mansion tax to fund a new, 10p lower rate of tax.

Here's the key extract.

Let me tell you about one crucial choice we would make, which is different from this government.

We would tax houses worth over £2 million. And we would use the money to cut taxes for working people.

We would put right a mistake made by Gordon Brown and the last Labour government.

We would use the money raised by a mansion tax to reintroduce a lower 10 pence starting rate of tax, with the size of the band depending on the amount raised.

This would benefit 25 million basic rate taxpayers.

Moving Labour on from the past and putting Labour where it should always have been, on the side of working people.

10.57am GMT

Here are the main points from David Heath's statement.

• Heath said that British horsemeat infected with bute (the name given to the horse drug phenylbutazone) may have entered the food chain in France.

The FSA's most recent tests on the presence of bute in horses sorted in the UK checked 206 horse carcasses. Eight have come back positive. Three may have entered the food chain in France. The remaining five have not gone into the food chain. The FSA are working with French authorities in an attempt to recall the meat from the food chain.

• He said the results of bute testing in the withdrawn Findus meat products have come back negative.

• He said retailers and suppliers on course to provide meaningful result of product testing tomorrow.

10.48am GMT

Heath says that, at low levels, there is very little risk that "bute" in horsemeat could provide a risk to human health.

10.44am GMT

David Heath Photograph: /BBC Parliament

David Heath is responding to Mary Creagh.

He says the government has followed the evidence all along.

And he says that Creagh said she had evidence of contamination, but refused to hand it over the the FSA. The public would expect everyone to co-operate with an investigation like this, he says.

Updated at 10.50am GMT

10.41am GMT

Mary Creagh Photograph: /BBC Parliament

Mary Creagh, the shadow environment secretary, is responding to Heath.

She says it is astonishing that the government was allowing horsemeat to enter the food chain until four days ago.

She accuses the govenrment of terrible complacency.

Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, is an arch Eurosceptic. Yet he has now had a Damascene conversion, because he is calling for tighter EU regulations.

Paterson and Heath are "totally clueless", she says.

10.37am GMT

Commons statement on horsemeat

David Heath, the farming minister, is repsonding to the urgent question on horsemeat.

He says for operational reasons the government could not give the Commons advance notice of the FSA raids yesterday on abattoirs.

The results of test will be announced tomorrow, he says.

The FSA has the results of its most recent tests for "bute" in horse.

Some 206 samples were tested. Eight of them tested positive. Three of those may have entered the food chain in France, he says.

• FSA says "bute", the drug given to horses, may have entered the food chain.

10.26am GMT

At 10.30am there's an urgent question in the Commons on horsemeat.

I'll be covering that in detail before switching to Ed Miliband at 11am.

Apparently the trains from London to Bedford have been up the spout this morning, but I'm told that Miliband is expected to start on time.

Cruddas may just have given away the big reveal. On Newsnight last night he suggested that Labour could reintroduce the 10p tax rate (which isn’t so much middle out as bottom up). I spoke to a source close to Miliband last night who said simply “Cruddas is Cruddas” (reminiscent of Blair’s famous John is John), but Labour’s policy chief surely isn’t just throwing out ideas at random on national TV? At the same time Miliband’s consigliere Stewart Wood wrote for the Huffington Post this morning, noting the importance of “a commitment to find new ways in which the tax system can more fairly distribute the burden of support, both in lean and better times”, which sounds awfully like a fairer tax system. That could be a reference to the 50p tax rate. But could it be something more?

The Labour party has also sent out some advance extracts from the speech that Jon Cruddas, the policy review co-ordinator, is giving to the IPPR this morning.

While Ed Miliband seems to be focusing on living standards and earnings, Cruddas will be talking about less tangible needs, like community.

• Cruddas will say that community is under strain.

I do not believe Britain is broken. But many feel they no longer belong to society... Too many people have no work, or too little work or fear losing work. People are struggling to survive by juggling two or more jobs. Cheap labour has been favoured over investment in workforce development and vocational education. The social epidemic of loneliness, particularly amongst the old, generates fear, anxiety and hostility to others, the loss of industries and skilled work that once gave pride and purpose, the loss of the ways of life that gave a sense of belonging and meaning to life, the loss of esteem and with it the shame of failure.

• He will say that the old answers, "more markets or more state", are now part of the problem, not part of the solution.

We do not live by the managerialism of the state nor by the transactions of the market. We live in families and relationships and networks of friendships in local places. Yet markets and financial transactions have been introduced into areas of life they do not belong while the importance of relationships and trust between people that lie at the heart of public services and institutions has been underplayed.

• He will say that Labour should reclaim its mutualist tradition.

Labour grew out of the mass popular movements of mutualism, self-improvement and collective self-reliance. It was working people organising together to change their lives for the better. Building their own power and strength. Creating building societies, co-operatives, libraries, education groups and trade unions. A great force for civilisation in Britain. It is a tradition that believes in opportunity, contribution and the power of relationships.

Ed Miliband's speech may be remembered as the "You've never had it so bad" speech. That is because he is going to make an explicit contrast with the message that Harold Macmillan delivered in 1957.

Here is the key passage, from extracts from the speech released by Labour overnight.

In 1957, the Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave a speech just across the river here, to celebrate Britain's economic success. New jobs, higher wages, greater opportunities for people to make something better for themselves and for their families. It became known as the speech where he declared "you've never had it so good".

Today in Bedford, in Britain as a whole, things are very different. Small businesses are working harder than ever before. People are working harder than ever before. But for far too many, wages are falling and prices are rising.

Far from feeling they have never had it so good, millions across Britain today fear 'they will never have it so good again'. The question that people ask me the most is 'how do we turn this round?' That's why I have come to Bedford today.

Because I think the answer starts with a truth that we have forgotten as a country: that economic recovery will be made by the many, not just by a few at the top ...

Over the last three decades or so, an entire half of the population has earned less than 15 pence of every additional pound Britain has made, while 24 pence in every pound has gone to the top 1% of earners. That makes it harder for Britain's economy to succeed.

But the problem now is that things are getting worse not better. This government promised change. But change isn't coming. The Government is cutting taxes for one group this year: the very richest in society. This April, 13,000 millionaires will each get a tax cut of £100,000. Now, we need very successful entrepreneurs in Britain. Making profits, being rewarded. But we can't succeed as a country just by hoping wealth will trickle down from those at the top to everyone else, our economy won't turn around that way.

David Cameron talks about a global race. And it is essential that we can compete with China and India and others. But I have to tell you, Britain won't win a race to the bottom by competing in the world as a low skill, low wage economy.

Updated at 9.27am GMT

8.53am GMT

We’ve got back-to-back speeches all morning. The main ones are coming from Ed Miliband and Sir John Major, but William Hague, Jim Murphy and Jon Cruddas are also promising significant interventions. There’s a lot of reading ahead.

Ed Miliband promises to make the 2015 general election a “living standards election” as he claims that the coalition’s squeeze on middle-income Britain has deepened the recession and created the “chilling prospect” of a further decade of pressure on most families’ living standards.

In a Guardian interview before a major speech on the economy, he also accuses David Cameron of deliberately squeezing the living standards of middle Britain in his determination to cut the deficit.

Bidding to set the frame for the next election, and drawing on some of the strategy that helped re-elect Barack Obama, the Labour leader says: “I am offering a choice between an economic recovery made by the many, not just a few at the top, and a Conservative strategy that consists of trickle-down from the top, a squeeze on the middle and a race to the bottom.”

As usual, I'll also be covering all the breaking political news as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at about 1pm and another in the afternoon.